2nd Half of Javelina Sausage 1-8-18

The 2nd Half of Javelina Cheese Jalapeno Sausage was done on Monday 1-8-18 was smoked by my wife. My son helped her stuff the LEM 1 1/2" by 12" fibrous clear casings that we picked up at Sportsman's Warehouse on Sunday along with a bag of Maple Smoker Wood Chips. We never use pellets because they contain fillers and binders that can taste gross.

At 11:47 she started the smoker. I was at work when she got the smoker out, filled the shelves with the freshly stuffed sausage, put in 1 tray of Maple Chips and 1 of Apple Chips. She cold started the smoker set at 155*F and set the time for 6 hours. The VENT is Closed. My wife had finished sausage smokes, but had only done ribs and salmon smokes at 225*F by herself that we leave the vent closed some times.

I worked my normal amount of hours this week so my wife did the whole smoking by herself. She likes the electric smoker because it is easy and very predictable.

At 12:47 she added a mixed tray of 1/2 maple and 1/2 apple chips. It was not smoking very much so she checked it at 1:10 and removed the bayonet tray for 10 minutes and saw the chips pile start glowing in the middle and saw smoke rolling out of the closed vent.

At 2:06 she added another mixed tray of maple and apple but left the bayonet out until the chips where glowing. With the upper vent closed there wasn't enough air flow to get oxygen to the chips, so they go out at lower smoking temperatures. I found at 200*F+ the smoker cycles the burner on more often so this is not an issue. When making sausage I like the lower settings.

At 5:10 she pulled the sausage that was perfectly done. This is the 1st lime we used maple and it really complemented the apple.

We let the sausage cool on the counter for a couple hours and then Zip-Lock bag it in the refrigerator over night. Then we vacuum seal each stick and freeze it. 

When we thaw out a stick it is usually gone in a couple of days, so I really don't know how long it will last in the refrigerator. I will make a sandwich with the sausage that will be in my pack for over 6 hours at moderate or cool weather. I never try it in hot weather. I don't use Nitrate or Nitrites so my old school historic recipe cannot be left on the counter for years. My style of salt/sugar cure tastes better and is better for you than the Prague Powder cure.

I want to shift gears and give Kudos to a hunting buddy of mine that did Javelina Sausage in an old school charcoal smoker. Here is a quote from his email to me:

“I'm making 16 lbs of sausage this weekend with the remains of lasts years javelina. I did not have that much meat so I ended up with a mix if 2/3 javelina and 1/3 pork butt. This is the first time I have used a dual temperature probe for smoking. I really like it. It's a Therm Pro. Having the remote sure is handy especially dealing with a smoker that uses charcoal.”

He did 6 pounds of my sausage recipe and 5 pounds of another recipe that looked good on the web. He did not put cheese in the sausage because he was using a mix of Javelina and domesticated pork that has fat in it. He did the remainder 5 pounds into breakfast sausage. He used natural pork casings so they are about 1” diameter.

We had some discussion about Natural versus Fibrous casings. I have been using the fibrous casing since I started this Blog because I want larger sized sausage sticks. The natural casings are for Slim Jim's, Hot Links, Hot Dogs Brats and Kielbasa. A big difference is that natural casings are edible and fibrous are not. 

Years ago I bought sheep's casing at our local grocery store and made Elk Hot Links. I did not over soak or under soak the casings and used an very old Oster meat grinder to stuff them so over pressure was not an issue. They split open about every foot. I made them work and finished the sausage. They did not smell or look strange. I had used natural casings before without issue and used other natural casing after that too. My only thought for learning would be that the casings were very old. Make sure you use casing bought from a place that sells lots of quality casings. 

The cheese in my sausage recipe tastes great but also acts as a binder with the No Fat wild game meats. If you don't use any fat with Javelina, Elk and Deer meat your sausage will be crumby. Most Arizona Deer and Elk have a small layer of fat across their backs. You can save that fat and use it when making sausage or add thick grated cheese.

We went to Nebraska a couple of years ago and found that because of the very harsh winters these deer thrive in they store fat, lots of fat. When I am talking about no fat game meat I am talking about Arizona big game. Even our Kaibab mule deer don't have the 3 inch thick layers of fat the Nebraska eastern whitetail deer have. Arizona elk and deer have the ability to migrate to lower less severe wintering areas. They may see -20*F for a couple of weeks but rarely have months of deep snow to dig through for food or eat bark and twigs.

Speaking of winter temperatures in Arizona. I live at 4100 feet elevation in northern Arizona at noon today we are seeing 56*F with a low this morning of 42*F. I don't ever remember a January that is this warm. We watched the New York Times Square New Years Eve Ball Drop with the coldest temperatures ever recorded.